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Mark Charles, an advocate for legislative Native American rights, visited students and faculty. Charles challenged and encouraged students to rethink their preconceived notions toward Native Americans.

“We don’t know what justice looks like when everything we have access to is tarnished,” he said.

Additionally, he shared about U.S. historical relations with tribal members and commented the “Constitution is systemically racist.” Currently Charles is leading a project to host a public reading of the 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations bill (H.R. 3326) in front of the US Capitol in Washington DC. He is doing so because this bill contains an “Apology to the native peoples of the United States” and was not publicized by the White House or by Congress.

In 1963 the Vatican allowed cremation but this month the Vatican began to issue tighter rules on how it could be used or stored. It disallowed throwing people’s ashes at sea. Watch the FOX TV News clip for more information.

Khizr Khan, who lost his son in the Iraq war and became unexpectedly famous after speaking at the DNC convention and being criticized by Donald Trump, visited Tigard for a meeting held by the Muslim Educational Trust. A crowd of 750 people gathered to hear him. Kahn said of his son ““He continues to teach us, we walk under his grace, under his light, with his firm determination in life to have in your heart care for others. So that is what made him take those 10 steps forward.” Watch his local interview on the KGW-TV news clip below.

The easy availability of guns did not make 6-year-old Jacob Hall safer. It helped make him dead.

We ought to remember this boy, who was fatally shot at his elementary school in Townville, S.C., just as we ought to remember the brilliantly applicable teaching of Jesus when he famously quipped, “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Swap in “gun” for “sword” and you have an apt description of what’s happening to us.

The mental and emotional problems of the teenager who shot Jacob last month turned lethal because a gun was available — probably in his household, which was known to keep firearms.

The faith film “I Am Not Ashamed” is about the life of Columbine shooting victim Rachel Scott and is being released across America this weekend. Stories on her death report that she was asked if she believed in God before she was executed by the shooters. The film’s trailer was blocked for several months by YouTube and later reinstated (see article here). Supporters of the film told FoxNews that they were not provided an accurate explanation stating that “[YouTube] would not give any explanation, no explanation whatsoever, why they… [took it down]…we’ve lost 11 months of being able to use social media freely. We feel it’s an interference with our freedom of expression.” In another controversy, The Atheist Show, is attacking the film saying that the story never happened as detailed in the film (article here).

My wife, daughter and I met for dinner recently with a Buddhist scholar Prof. Shizuka Sasaki and his wife (a fellow scholar and colleague at Hanazono University) in Kyoto, Japan.

I first met Prof. Shizuka Sasaki two years ago as a result of a Templeton science grant initiative on faith and science in the Japanese context. I was struck by his keen commitment to the historical Buddha’s teaching on enlightenment, including the emphasis on non-grasping and non-being. According to Prof. Sasaki, he was trained in chemistry as a university student, but later made the switch to Buddhist studies. Still, his interest in science continues. For example, scientists have been struck by the import of his Buddhist teaching for constructive dialogue with scientific explorations. In fact, he is the co-author of a forthcoming book with a string-theory physicist from California Institute of Technology; the work is a collection of public lectures they delivered together in Japan, and which will be published in Japanese. Prof. Sasaki is also the author of Kagaku Suru Buddha (literally translated as Buddha Engaging in Science; Tokyo: Kadokawa Bunko, 2006, 2013).

Walking into the offices of Circle Media Inc. is a little like stepping through a portal into another, more fantastic world. The hot teal walls cozily square a lobby filled with multiple variations of plastic and wooden Eames chairs and a grey, mid-century modern sofa. Minimalist shelves and coffee tables are filled with Disney products, including large animation books, a Captain Phasma Stormtrooper mask and two lightsabers. Conglomerates of partially disassembled Circle devices are strewn about, revealing the technological guts of the otherwise clean, roughly baseball-sized, white cubes. This product, Circle with Disney, is a technology that allows parents to manage content and time online across a family’s collection of Internet devices. It can pause the Internet, filter content, set time limits and add bedtimes to devices. The simple interface is managed with an easy-to-use smartphone app.

“Circle was started with a belief that each child’s experience (with media) is different, and a parent should be able to parent in that space,” says MU alum and co-founder, Jelani Memory. His own daughter was able to unlock his iPhone at two years old. “At that point, there’s really no going back,” he says. Memory co-founded Circle a few years ago, after Lance, a good friend and fellow MU alum, brought up an idea to create something to help families manage Internet devices. “We sat around his kitchen island, as we often did,” Memory recalls. “Then we discussed how there are so many devices that connect to the Internet, and they can be hard to manage as a parent.” In 2013, The Walt Disney Company called Circle to partner with them after an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign, a partnership that officially began last year.

One would have been hard-pressed to find a person more secure in her anti-Catholic beliefs than author Sally Read. Heralded as one of the bright young writers of the British poetry scene, Read was a die-hard feminist and staunch atheist. However, all that changed when “[she] found Him who [her] soul loves.” Read’s fascinating conversion to the Catholic faith is masterfully chronicled in her new book, NIGHT’S BRIGHT DARKNESS: A Modern Conversion Story.

Read makes no secret of her original disgust and revile of Catholicism in NIGHT’S BRIGHT DARKNESS. She provides an abundance of recollections of how much she despised the Catholic Church, including how she went through a period in which she collected images of the Blessed Mother in a mocking fascination of the woman she believed stood for everything she had been brought up to reject: “submission, docility, chastity.” In fact, Read was in the process of writing a book about female sexuality when she first met the priest who would help change everything. And even when Read first realized that she believed in God, the idea of becoming Catholic was out-of-the-question.

Though it was foreseen for many years, nationwide legalized homosexual marriage was a long time in coming. I think we’re beginning to see that now that it’s here, it has broken down many restraining walls in our society. Consider the speed at which transgenderism and gender identity have grabbed hold of our culture, and even the world of our children and grandchildren.

Christian families in my hometown of Gresham, Oregon are feeling some of those effects after reading Oregon’s new public school policies regarding transgender students. One of the documents pertains to 6th grade outdoor school, which is run by a local school district. The other document serves to provide guidance to educators and schools, including in the areas of Physical Education and Health/Sex Education.

George Fox University breaks 4,000 enrollment mark for first time in its 125-year historyThe Newberg, Ore., school enrolls more than 2,700 undergraduates and 1,400 in its graduate-level programs

NEWBERG, Ore. – For the first time in its 125-year history, George Fox University broke the 4,000-student mark this fall, as 4,140 students – including more than 2,700 undergraduates – are attending the Newberg, Ore., institution.

The total eclipsed last year’s enrollment of 3,931, which was up from the 3,793 who enrolled in the fall of 2014. It marked the fourth year in the school’s history that more than 3,700 enrolled and the 27th time in 30 years it established an enrollment record.